Sermon - The Gospel of Mark

Sermon preached First Sunday of Advent 2005

By The Reverend Dr Joan Crossley

Marks Gospel
On this day last year, the first Sunday in Advent I spoke to you about the Gospel of St Matthew. Today being the first Sunday on the new year in the church calendar, we move on to a different Gospel. This year we will be spending a lot of time reading and studying the gospel according to St Mark. He is, of course, the patron saint of our beloved church here, and so it might be of special interest to think a little about what is known of him and learn more about the gospel which carries his name.
 

Little is known about Mark the man, although he is widely believed to be the John Mark, cousin of St Barnabas, who set out with Paul on his first missionary journey. This John Mark later went with Paul to Rome and was with Barnabas in Cyprus. But there is no firm evidence that the writer of the Gospel and this man are one and the same. Many legends grew up filling in the lack of detail about him. According to Eusebius, an early church writer, Mark went to Alexandria and became the first bishop there. He has strong associations with the city of Venice.
Until the twentieth century St Mark’s was regarded as the least significant of the four Gospels and it was the least studied. This was because ninety percent of Mark’s gospel appears in St Matthew. And about half is found in St Luke. Mark does not include many of the parts of the Jesus story that we hold so dear – for example he does not include the nativity story. Very little of the Sermon on the Mount and other teachings of Jesus find their way into Mark’s gospel and it does not contain the marvellous parables such as the Good Samaritan and the Prodigal Son. The view of the early church scholars was that Mark was a rather inferior imitator of St Matthew’s writings and of little independent value. Indeed it might have been dropped from the list of Gospels included in the canon, if it were not for one important tradition attaching to it – that Mark had been a disciple of St Peter himself. It was thought that Mark might be the person mentioned in 1 Peter 5: 13, whom Peter refers to as “my son Mark”. It seemed likely that the details and facts in the Gospel had been passed directly from an eyewitness. Could have been Peter, the most important of all the disciples who reported directly to the writer? Interestingly this tradition that the Gospel was written by a friend of St Peter has recently seemed even more likely because it has been discovered through scientific and linguistic analysis that it may well have been written soon after the death of Peter in AD64.
 

In the last century, scholars came up with a highly convincing theory that far from being an after-thought Gospel, Mark’s writing’s did indeed show evidence of having been the earliest record available of Jesus’ teachings, and that Matthew and Luke had borrowed” bits of text from Mark and another, now tragically lost, gospel called “Q”.
 

Interesting though all this Bible scholarship is, having established why Mark’s Gospel is valuable and important- what qualities characterise Mark’s gospel? The language in which it was written was the popular Greek spoken throughout the eastern Mediterranean. The writer shows knowledge of the Jewish and Aramaic societies in which Jesus lived, suggesting that he like St Paul, whom he may have travelled, was born a Jew. In his Gospel, Mark stresses that Jesus discarded the dietary laws which had been sacred to observant Jews. The emphasis that Mark puts on the Lord making these profound changes in lifestyle probably means that he made the tough choice to do so, too.
 

The Gospel opens with the preaching of John and Jesus being baptised in the river Jordan, and with no preliminaries, the mission of Jesus begins. St. Mark's style is clear, direct, terse, and picturesque, if at times a little abrupt. Mark is a master storyteller, slowly revealing the secret of Jesus’ divinity. At first it is only John who knows, then it is demons that are made to keep silent. Then it is revealed to the disciples, and then through miracles, healing and his spiritual authority, to the discerning in the crowds. The suspense is increased, as after a healing such as that of Jairus’s daughter, Jesus “strictly charged that no one should know….”
 

The disciples are depicted as full of weakness , sometimes as downright stupid. I find this both confusing and encouraging. Confusing because surely the first followers of Jesus were heroes who gave up their livelihoods and families in order to become disciples? Scholars have argued that this continual failure of the disciples is a literary device, a way of showing more clearly what Jesus wanted to teach. The disciples are the fall guys, they misunderstand and are corrected. They ask the questions we might want to and so we learn Jesus’ message.
 

The idea that even the disciples might be abject failures on occasion is oddly comforting. It shows us that Jesus chose to confide the knowledge of his divinity not to unflawed, shining examples of spiritual perfection, but to stumbling, confused and spiritually blind people who kept missing the point. The beautiful truth of this is that privileged though we are, as modern followers of Christ, he does not expect perfection from us, either!

What matters is our willingness to be followers and obey his commandments.
 

In today’s reading from Mark we hear part of a long passage of prophecy. Just a few verses before Jesus has made the astonishing claim that the mighty Temple of Jerusalem would fall and be destroyed. The disciples must have been amazed and horrified. Jesus then went on to warn them that they must be steadfast through wars and rumours of wars, through earthquakes and famines. Holding firmly to the faith will be a mighty test of endurance. The picture Jesus paints is bleak as he piles up image upon image of desolation and strife. The words are magnificent, recalling the warnings of the Old Testament prophets, but applying them to his own return to earth on the last day to judge the fallen world. The writer skilfully strikes different notes, sounding hopeful, fearful and joyful in successive lines. At the end of this great symphony of warning comes the simple word: watch. Be watchful, prepared and ready. Do not assume that you will always have time to amend your ways, time to live as you know you should. Your time could have run out before you know it. Watch!
 

We in the church are preparing to celebrate the anniversary of Jesus’ birth into this world. Advent is a time of waiting, hoping and spiritually preparing for the new beginning that is the birth of Christ. So why then are we beginning the Church year with prophecies about the end time? It is because the true meaning of Jesus’ incarnation was not, is not just about birth and life but also about death and salvation at the end of all things. In the end is our beginning. Amen